Last Post from China

Well this will be my last blog post while being here in China. So I didn't finish telling you about Halloween... but if you see the pictures on my facebook you can tell it was an epic adventure! November was fun. I witnessed a baptism in a hotel swimming pool which was a way neat experience. On Thanksgiving day the cafeteria had some pretty nasty food, but Sunday made up for it when we went to the Davidsons and they made us some pretty amazing American Thanksgiving food. December has been pretty freaking cold. All month we've been working on our Christmas program. The kids learn Christmas songs and sing and dance in front of their parents and rehears a few lines from the poem "Twas the night before Christmas." So we've been working on that. Also it's the schools week starting on the 8th where they have International week. It's where the all the kids from Primary school through the High school learn about all the countries. So the school put us in charge of U.S.A. and Canada and we have to decorate the primary building with our countries stuff. So Friday we are all dressing up as Cowboys/girls and the primary teachers are dressing up as Native Americans (te he). We've taught all the primary kids the Cotten Eye Joe line dance and they will be dancing in front of their parents. Also Cyd was asked to sing a song during the International part where kids have to sing and dance to different countries music. So she was going to have to sing in Chinese but she got out of it by 5 of us volunteering to do a country line dance instead. Well we couldn't do that anymore because of the primary school doing the Cotten Eye Joe dance. So we were going to do a stomp. Can't do that because the Chinese people don't understand what it is so they really wouldn't be able to comprehend it. So we are doing a Hip Hop dance to Dynamite by Taio Cruz. Guess who is choreographing it. Me. So it's probably not going to turn out very well. But the Chinese people can't dance so they will hopefully think that we are amazing. They already think that white people are amazing so, I think we'll be okay.

My 7 kids that I teach were talking to me in class one day, and one of the little boys (Home) told me the story about all of us teachers going home. After he was finished all the other kids started to cry and say "Teacher Jen, No go home." :( It was so sad. I almost started to cry. But we have about two weeks left and all the kids are already crying telling us not to go home. It's so sad.

My next blog post I will be home uploading stuff about all of everything we are preparing for now.

Cat Fights and Halloween

Alrighty, so a lot of things have happened the past couple of days. My kids caught me speaking Chinese and got me in trouble, I saw a Chinese cat fight, gave flowers to cheer up a friend, I had dinner with the barber gang, sang karaoke in the streets, had O-wen walk Cyd and I home, looked like death, scared the primary school, scared the high schoolers, road the bus dressed up as a zombie, visited the barber gang while being dressed up, and have become obsessed with a Chinese singer/actor. Oh! And we’ve invented a new game.

Tehe J

Okay so here I start. I was teaching part of the 14 kids, right. We were talking and there are some rules we have that the kids have basically memorized. Rule one is English only. Rule two is hands to yourself. Rule three is bums on chair, feet on floor. Rule four is listen to teacher. Rule five is stay in line. So in class we were talking and I spoke Chinese by accident. One of the girls that I absolutely adore now, her name is Happy, looked at me wide eyed and said “Teacher Jen! English only!” then she covered her mouth and pointed at the Chinese chair. (Chinese chair is where the kids have to sit, it’s in the corner of the room). Then all the kids pointed at the chair and told me to go over there. So I had to go over to the chair and repeat the rules to them. I taught the lesson from that chair for a few minutes. They were really cute. But I don’t speak Chinese in the classes anymore.

So, one night Cyd and I were walking around our night market and we were going to go say hi to our barber gang, and something was happening there. When we started to walk up to the place we heard yelling. Then everyone on the street started to gather around the barber shop. We saw one lady slap someone and then the crowd got bigger and I couldn’t see what was going on. Cyd and I ended up on the other side of the street eating our street food trying not to stick out to anyone. (Kind of hard when you’re the only white people around). But there was more yelling, then we saw Tony start shoving people out of the shop and O-wen helped get others out of the shop. They closed the door when they got mostly everyone out, people were still yelling inside though. That’s when Cyd and I decided to walk around the block to waste time hoping that the doors would be open by the time we got back. We walked as slow as we could, but when we got there the doors were still closed. Mia spotted us though and came out and sat down at the table and tried to tell us what had happened. She doesn’t know a lick of English so it was hard to translate. What we got out of it, was that Sonny had done a ladies hair straight but the lady wanted it curly… strange, that’s what I thought. Mia stayed outside with us and we talked to each other as much as we could and then the doors opened and people left. Mia told (or motioned) us to go in. We walked in and the environment inside was pretty forlorn. It was SO sad. Everyone’s head was drooped and they were looking at the ground. Usually when we go in it’s so happy and they’re all smiling, but not this time. Marley, Sonny’s wife, was sitting on the couch holding her sleeping baby. She was rocking him back and forth but she was crying, and she wouldn’t stop crying. We felt awful. We didn’t know what had happened, but we found out that the lady had yelled at or hit Marley… something like that (not quite sure) So we went over and gave Marley a hug. But she just still cried so we didn’t know what to do except leave. We said goodbye and started to walk away. I was talking to Cyd about it as we walked away and finally I just said that we had to get her flowers. We walked around the block as quick as we could and found a flower shop. We bought the most beautiful bouquet, didn’t even try to barter for it, and got out of there. We showed up with the flowers and after I ran into the door walking in with them, Marley just started to cry harder. But we could tell she was only crying because she knew that we cared for her. Tony and O-wen had us sit down on the couch and we started to talk. We sat there till 10 at night just talking about every simple thing we could. Mia kept leaving the shop and coming back with food and drinks for us. It was really cute. Cyd and I were both stuffed from eating dinner and a bunch of street food but we still ate all that we possible could. By the end of that night Marley was smiling little kids were running in and out of the shop playing cowboys with me and people were laughing again. I would like to say that was a good accomplishment for me and Cyd.

That night they had invited us to come back and they would cook dinner for us. Well we were more excited when Sonny had asked us to come back, because we knew everyone else liked us we just weren’t sure about Sonny. So it was really exciting when he invited us to come back and have dinner with them. A couple of days later Cyd and I went back. When we got there they had us sit down in the shop. We sat there for two hours talking to any of them that weren’t doing hair. I had my aviators and they were all trying them on and posing. That was way funny. O-wen was looking through Cyd’s translation book and he found the romance section. Now O-wen can speak a decent amount of English but it’s not the best. But him reading some of the romance sentences was a hoot!!! He just got the biggest kick out of it. It really was a “had to be there moment” But after the two hours they invited us outside to eat what Marley had cooked for us. There was shrimp, green beans, mushrooms, a whole fish with eyes and everything, some other fish that had legs and you had to shell, tomato and egg soup, rice, and baozi. It was all really good. Tony decided to put orange soda in his rice… when he saw Cyd and I looking at him in a weird way he giggled and added more. Strange boy. We went back inside and started to talk again. Down the street there is a Karaoke stand that we were hearing. So we tried to get Sonny to go and sing. But he would not. Not at all. So we ended up getting Tony and O-wen to go out and sing. That’s when it turned into a Karaoke night. Cyd and I sang My Heart Will Go On with O-wen. That was fun. Then O-wen sang a Chinese song, which was way adorable. Let me tell ya this, that man can sing! So around ten o-clock Cyd and I started to walk home. It’s about a twenty minute walk from the barber place if the buses stop running. And after 9 they stop running. So anyways… we start walking home and we hear a “HelllllO!” O-wen was running after us. He wanted to walk us home. We told him we thought he was crazy but he insisted. Our twenty minute walk turned into a thirty minute walk. Chinese people walk really slow. While we were talking on our extremely slow walk, we found out he has a picture of a girl for his QQ (Chinese version of MSN messenger) profile picture. So we asked him who is was and he told us he didn’t know, he just found the picture on the internet and copied it. So we asked him why he had a picture of the girl he doesn’t even know and his reply was “Because,… I like… GIRLS!!” It was really hilarious. This Chinese man screaming out “GIRLS!” then crouching down and laughing.

When we got to the school our night guard (the cute night guard) was asleep. So we sat there for a minute deciding whether or not to wake him up. We kind of had to because he needed to open the gate to let us into campus. So we woke him up and we felt awful, just because it was the night shift and this poor guy was tired and accidentally fell asleep on his shift.

Now, Halloween. Our original plan for Halloween was to have our ILP kids walk through our office which we turned into a mini haunted house. Let me just tell you that this office rocked! We had it so it was pitch black, Emileigh would be the guide and shine a flash light on the rest of us so the kids could see us scare them. But first they had to get on their hands and knees and crawl through a tunnel which we made out of our big long office table. Kelan would grab their ankles from outside of the table which was hilarious. Then when they got out of the tunnel they would get up and Ariel would be sitting in the corner with a scream mask on and she would just yell/scream at them, it would freak them out. Then they would walk around the room and come to me, where I was lying on a table all bloody, ripped shorts, and cut up. Thanks to Cyd and her makeup skills, the kids did not even want to pass by me.

Sports, Hair and Hamburgers

There has been a lot of things that have happened since the last blog post. This past week has been CRAZY! Monday we found out that our classes were being canceled because of the school sports day. Let me tell you about this sports day. It's like a mini Olympic event. Each grade learns a dance or some weird entertainment show and they have opening ceremonies where all the kids are outside around the track just watching. Then kids run the track, throw the javelin and other throws and jumps. While all of the other kids are sitting in the bleachers playing on their phones... We were supposed to run against the other Chinese teachers but they saw some of us running around the track earlier in the week and decided that they didn't want to run against us. But classes were cancelled for everyone Wednesday through Sunday so Cyd, Lizzie and I took a bus to Chong Zhou where we saw Cyd's kids that she taught last year. They were WAY cute! We stayed the night there and explored the city. We had lots of fun and I found myself a knock off Casio watch that looks exactly like my blue one! :-) We left that afternoon and got back to Ningbo that night. Friday we have soccer with the Chinese teachers at 3. Lizzie, Keelan and I went and played. I have to say, Chinese P.E. teachers might look a bit heavy but they are freaking fast!! We played against all these Asian guys and Lizzie and I were the only girls. I didn't do too bad and my soccer skills were slowly coming back but these guys were brutal and all a good head taller than me so they were pretty much knocking me around like a rag doll. I pulled off some pretty cool foot skills and was totally getting around them until I was involved in a huge take out. I slide tackled this pretty big guy and he lost his balance and we ended up tumbling around and colliding. I ended up in the fetal position with him sprawled on top of me. He was perfectly fine. I got up with a knee that was already bruised and swelling. Couldn't really even walk on it... But I kept on playing ;-) It was really fun and I can't wait for next Friday to do it all again! Except that next Friday the high school boys want to join so it'll be really rough...but fun!

Saturday the school took us to Hongzhou. It's this really pretty town. We had our coordinator Angle with us and we went with a tour group which was cool. The tour leader told all the other people in the group to look after us and make sure that nothing bad happened to us. A lot of the people in our group asked to have their pictures taken with us. We went to West Lake which was absolutely beautiful. Then we went to a couple of different temples and tea houses. We also went to a silk factory. It was all really cool.

This last month we have been discovering some fun places in Ningbo. We found a night market that's only two bus stops away from our school that has some fun clothing and jewelry and some amazing street food. We also found a fantastic hair salon. Something interesting here is that it is men who are usually the stylists here. Every now and then you'll find a woman doing hair but not often. You haven't lived life yet until you've had your hair washed, colored and cut by a beautiful straight Asian man! Just sayin. The guys at the salon we go to are hilarious. Sonny, the owner, doesn't speak a lick of English but through the Chinese we've learned we found out that he is quite blunt and funny. His wife (couldn't spell her Chinese name if my life depended on it) helps him out and they have a little boy who is about a year old and always has a Mohawk. There is Tony who is freakishly tall and very shy and it doesn't help him that he only knows a few words in English. And there's O-wen who speaks a little bit of English and is pretty funny. Tony went out to smoke and O-wen said to us that "Smoking... is bad for health." that's when we asked him if he smoked and he got all red and replied "sometimes." It was funny to see him so embarrassed but not surprising since most of the men here smoke.

I never thought I'd say this but thank goodness for McDonald's!! Seriously, some of the food here is crazy! I don't even know what most of it is . Honestly I don't really want to ask either. But we figured out that people here don't really look at their food. They just eat whatever is in front of them. So having a hamburger and knowing exactly what's in that hamburger can be very comforting. I don't think I'll qualify as a picky eater anymore when I get home.

Food Poisoning and Such

Jen sent this update to me with the last updates but it got lost. My bad!

So this week was our seven day vacation (national holiday to celebrate communisium) We were going to go to Beijing but decided not to. Then we were going to go to Zhujoe. That didn't happen so we're really just exploring Ningbo. But guess who decided to get sick at the begining of our longest holiday. That's right, I did! I either got sick with an epic dose of food poisoning or the chinese flu. I've been stuck in my apartment at the empty school for four days now, throwing up and sipping on water. I do have to thank Keelan and Arial for all the caring they have shown me. They brought over saltine crackers which are very hard to find here, along with ginger ale. Keelan was also nice enough to give me a blessing which I was very very very thankful for. Those two are going to have an amazing life. I'm really glad Lizzie came along with me. She's been taking care of me and making sure I've been eating and getting enough rest. She's been the girl who holds your hair when you throw up (well technically she didn't hold my hair but she has done a lot more than that.) But sitting in my room for four days made me realize that me getting sick is a blessing. No, that's not crazy talk. I realized that I was just going and going, from here to there, near , far. Never really stopping and calming down since I got here. I feel like me getting sick was God's way of showing me that I need to slow down and take it easy while I can. It's nice to know that I don't have to be anywhere and that I can relax and regenerate.

Being sick does make you a little homesick. Thinking that a nice bowl of chicken noodle soup sounds good. But you don't want to buy it hear because the meat will probably be all fat and who know's if there is going to be bones in the soup. Then you just try not to throw up again thinking of Chinese food.

The last meal I ate before I threw up was Greek food. And it was delicious! So good. Then the first thing out of my stomach was the delisious Greek food. Lets just say it wasn't that delisious anymore. I don't think I'll be having Greek food anytime soon.

Students

Well it's been a month now that I've lived in China. I've experienced a LOT. I can tell you that any weird disgusting stories about China are probably 100% true. I've been on buses where you stand on the step by the front door because that's all the room there is on the bus. I've had little kids rub my arms because they think it's so cool that I have hair on my arms.

The past week my group has been taking Tai Chi lessons. And yes, it is the coolest most amazing workout ever! Soothing with a combination of power. Our teacher is one of the P.E. teachers here at the school and I think he's the most beautiful Asian man I have ever seen! So that's a bonus right?

Oh and this past week Cyd and I were walking around the barter market and we had a Chinese girl com up to us. She started to talk to us in English and said that she is in her fourth year in college majoring in English so she wanted to shop with us so she could practice. She is way cute and funny and has become a really good friend of ours. She also gave me a Chinese name. I don't know how to spell it or tell you what the meaning is behind it because she was going on and on about it and I really don't remember it all... But I have a Chinese name now so I feel pretty cool.

So teaching has gotten better. My home room is sometimes fun, but sometimes they can be the biggest pills! We get to teach our home room last, so the kids are probably tired from the classes before, and I'm tired of teaching the same lesson over and over again. So those two combined together makes it hard. But I still love them!

Left to right

Eddie who just has a bunch of energy and just flings his arms and legs in every direction.

Home: Smartest little boy you'll meet. He's so quiet but when everyone leaves the room he just wants to talk to you but you don't know Chinese and feel bad when you don't know what he's saying.

Sky: She's a little pill! She acts like she is sick so she can get out of class and she always just whines.

Sue: She's the cutest little thing! I want to take her home with me!

Ruby: She's the kid that does what she's told and doesn't really stick out but isn't shy at the same time.

Candy: This girl has an attitude. She does what she wants. I feel bad for her. Usually the kids go home for the weekend but she stays at the school. Both her parents work so they just have her stay at the school. And really all the girl wants is some attention. I feel so bad for her. :-(

Lucy: Oh Lucy, she is just unique and so loveable!

The kids are really fun and this week we're going to make light sabers and swords, I'm going to take pictures and get them posted as soon as I can. Also the kids love to sing songs with actions so we taught them the Itsy-bitsy spider, Snowman, Popcorn Popping and Old McDonald. One day they just got bored with all the songs and I couldn't control them so I taught them Book of Mormon stories. They LOVED it! But we can't sing that song in front of the Chinese teachers so every time one of them comes in they want to sings BOMS I have to shush them so they don't get me into trouble.

Shang Hai Trip

Alright, so I've been getting a lot of e-mails about how I need to update this blog so I guess I will. I tried e-mailing my sister with a huge detailed message on my vacation in Shang Hai but right when I was about to e-mail it my Internet went out and it didn't save in my drafts. (Sad face). So you don't get as good of details as my first one but here I go.

We took a bus from our school to the train station which took about an hour. After that we took the three hour fast train to Shang Hai and there we took the subway to our hostel. The hostel that we went to was way cool. They had a bar/cafe that had the most AMAZING bacon cheese fries. They also made really good pasta. But anyways, there were people from everywhere at the hostel. We )as in me, Lizzie, Emiliegh, Amy and my head teacher Cyd) med some really fun Swedish guys. Well, technically they did because I was reading on a really comfy sofa...

The first day in town we went to a fun little market on the street that way by the famous tea house. We just took pictures of the tea house.

After that we headed to the antique market which was really fun. Basically anything old Chinese that you're looking for you can find there. Unless you are looking for a Big Buddha ring that actually fits my tiny fingers... good luck with that one. But you can find old scrolls, chopsticks, fans, statues, little Chinese, even a little statue of Joseph Smith!

But these are what some of the stands looked like.

When we went to Shang Hai they were having their moon festival so one night we were able to go to a parade... which took forever!! Each float or band was at least a quarter of a mile away from the one in front of it and behind it. So we only stayed until Emiliegh saw her old high school band pass by.

The next day we went to the knock-off market and the pearl market. The knock-off market wasn't the best deals. I was going around just price checking how much fake converse would be and the lowest I could get the for was 50 Yuan which wasn't really a good deal. And that was hard enough getting a lady down to 50. So I didn't buy anything there because there is a market here in Ning Bo that is for the locals and you can get converse around 20 Yuan. The knock-off market in Shang Hai is for more tourists. Then we went to the pearl market. Our branch presidents wife was telling us that she has a pearl lady there so she gave us the ladies business card. We found the lady and she gave us the lowest price because we were friends. So we didn't even have to barter! Yes I got a lot. I also was able to get some jade and silver from her for 15 Yuan which is about $2.

Ya, that's right! One night we went and saw Chinese acrobats. Most amazing thing I have seen! They make gymnasts look like a stuff toy soldier. If you haven't ever seen them... Wow. Totally recommend it. This is just a picture of us there... we weren't allowed to take pictures of them.

Anyways that was basically our trip in Shang Hai. This is the first picture we all took when we were in Shang Hai. Left to right Emiliegh, Amy, Cyd, me and LIzzie.

First Weekish

Whoops! So I had this all set to post and somehow it got saved instead. Jen sent this to me over a week ago and I'm hoping to get another update soon.

Today was teachers day so we had a really nice dinner with all of the other primary teachers. I was adventurous and tried oyster, craw fish, crab and squid. First time trying any of them and they were all delish!! We went out with five of the other guy teachers (two PE teacher, one math and one geography) who were all really funny. One of the other girls I was with was eating with her chopsticks upside down so the math teacher politely said "no, no, no" then too her chopsticks and flipped them the other way. It totally cracked us up.

So I was using the microwave and I blew he circuit so now we don't have any electricity. Also, our water heater wasn't working for the first week so we were taking cold- wait, very VERY cold showers. It was an adventure but now I really kind of like cold showers, wakes you right up! But it's fixed now so at least we have the option.

We've taught a couple of days now; it's been difficult but enjoyable. There is this kid named Nick who is the cutest kid but the biggest pain in the bum. Wallin is also one you really have to yell at to get him to do what you want. Very frustrating sometimes. But then there are these three girls, Lucy, Sue and Amy, they are so cute and smart and they catch on so fast.

We went to church on Sunday. Getting there was AWFUL! I was a half hour bus ride to get to David's place, the David took us on another bus for an hour and a half. After that we walked at least ten blocks before David called the branch president who sent his driver to pick us up. After at least two hours of travel we finally made it to the house where we had church. It was very small but very spiritual. We all sat around in a dining room and had sacrament, the branch president's daughter sang a song and played the violin and the we had testimony meeting. After that we watched a conference talk for Sunday school in the living room. Afterwards we had an amazing homemade dinner of completely American food! Roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, carrots, salad and some fantastic rolls. Our group that day was only 11 people but it was so spiritual and the whole time church was going on I had to keep thinking to myself "Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry".

Anyways, tomorrow I'm hoping to find a cheap shop to buy DVDs!!

Please shoot Jen an e-mail if you have time. I know she'd love to hear form everyone. Her e-mail is jenesey@rocketmail.com and if you have Skype keep an eye out for her. We're still trying to figure out regular times that we can chat with her.